浙江省台州市2020-2021学年高一下学期英语期末质量评估试题

Where am I? What am I doing? If you're one of my 500 friends online, you'll always be the first to know. My phone and laptop are never out of touching distance, so I'm endlessly checking through all my social networking apps - whether I'm having a coffee, on my way to school, watching TV. . even when I'm in the shower. I have a never - ending flow of messages and updates from all the people I associate with online. Yet the truth of the matter is: I feel lonely

I'm not the only person who feels this way. According to research, over two-thirds of young people find it easier to make friends online than it is "in real life". I'm a shy person, but I'm wired up (上线) every day, like most of my friends. On the surface, phones bring us closer together. But in reality, my mind is always a million miles away.

I often feel depressed, dissatisfied and alone. Since I spend so much time socializing online, I even become a procrastinator (拖延者). I keep postponing things that are important in my real life: homework, tasks, connecting with my friends and family members in a meaningful way. It's funny that my friends and I chatter away online so much, but we end up having nothing to say when we meet.

What is rally worrying is that no one I know, including myself. could go cold turkey. I can't even imagine going without social networking for a week - think of all the important appointments, invitations and news updates you would miss! Alcoholics (酗酒者) who want to quit drinking can avoid drinks, but how do we give up our phones? After all, I need it for my studies because my teachers and classmates need to contact me at any time. So, that's the problem with social networking. We're hard-wired in, but we're more disconnected than ever.

Today, environmental problems have taken over as the greatest risk to life on Earth. Scientists are thinking of ways to lower this risk, such as replacing coal and oil with forms of renewable energy. But they are also preparing for the worst: what is our Plan B for Earth?

One option is to explore other planets to see if we could live on them. The most likely choice is Mars, which is relatively close to Earth. Mars has fascinated people since ancient times. Since the 1960s, we have been sending unmanned spacecraft to Mars. Our probes (探测器) have orbited the planet, sending back valuable data and stunning images. Our robots have explored the Martian surface, testing the soil and searching for resources, water and signs of life. Encouraged by discoveries over the year, space agencies of various counties are panning manned missions to Mars that could take place within the next 25 years.

No doubt that humankind is drawn towards Mars, with dreams of making it our second home. However, sending people there will require all the sill, courage and intelligence of the human race. while the Moon can be reached within days, it would take months to reach Mars, travelling through dangerous solar radiation (辐射). And even if the first settlers do reach Mars safely, they may not be able to return to Earth ever. Staying alive will be a daily challenge, but as proved by the Biosphere 2 experiment, not impossible. Although the two - year experiment was not a success, it did provide us with a better understanding of how humans might be able to live on another planet. More recently, scientists have succeeded in growing a variety of plants in an environment similar to that on Mars. That definitely is a big step forward.

For now, human settlement of Mars is still decades away. Until we are finally able to live on another planet, we need to take much better care of our own. Right now, it's the only one we have!

Famous American poet Robert Frost once said, "Poetry is what gets lost in translation" But Xu Yuanchong, a well - known Chinese translator, has tried to convey the beauty of ancient Chinese poetry throughout his life. His teacher Qian Zhongshu commented on his poetry translation, "You are dancing while chained by rhyme (押韵) and thythm, but the dance shows amazing freedom and beauty, which is quite impressive."

Since 1978, Xu has published more than 100 translated works in Chinese, English and French, reaching millions of readers at home and abroad. Most notably, he translated Chinese poems into rhymed verses in both English and French. He is also the first Asian winner of the Aurora Borealis Prize for Outstanding Translation of Fiction Literature.

Xu is known to be very fastidious (一丝不苟的) in his work. For him, English is a "scientific" language that needs exactness while Chinese is an"artistic" language that includes a wider range of content. Following this principle, Xu not only keeps faithfulness in sense but beauty in sensibility in his translation.

Through Xu's translations, time-honored Chinese wisdom has made an impact on Western societies and the world. For example, when former US president Barack Obama tried to begin a healthcare project during his presidency, some senators disagreed at first. But after reading the poem titled Fishing in Snow translated by Xu, one senator was so impressed with the fisherman's independent thinking that he chose to part with the party line to support Obama.

Having made such great achievements, the 100 - year - old maintains a routine (常规). Every day he translates about 1, 000 words, working till 3 to 4 am, sleeping about 3 hours and getting up at 6 am to continue. "Translation is a means of communicating with the writer's soul. A sudden flicker of a good word or a good line thrills every pore and every inch of my skin," Xu told News China.

It's all about ME!

"Me". It's a small word with big meaning.  Through interviews, I was able to discover what "me" means to other people, and how they have learnt to appreciate the beauty in themselves…

一 Psychologist, Dr Hart

A. Each "like" builds up my confidence.

B. I didn't like being reviewed from head to toe at first.

C. It plays a part in the image we present to the whole world.

D. My anxiety drove me to try every means possible to lose weight.

E. And that meaning is as individual to each of us as the way we look.

F. People who pretend to be someone else tend to misjudge themselves.

G. Being healthy is beautiful and we should wear that beauty with confidence.

I decided at age 10 that I was going to be a teacher because I 1 superpowers. When I was in primary school, I could clearly see that some of my 2 had superpowers because I was always the quietly observant one, 3 things.

Our English teacher could magically 4 us to different worlds every day, simply by reading stories to us from books we would otherwise never 5 .This was our secret because fifth graders were considered too 6 to have stories read out to them. Then our headmaster, a teacher as well, 7 everything about every child. You couldn't 8 his laser - like (激光般的) eyes that could see right into you一through flesh, bones and all And our geography teacher could 9 the invisible (隐形的). I remained rather quiet and unnoticeable. 10 , she would spot me. The unspoken 11 in her superpowered eyes told me: "I see you, I know you, I understand you."

As I learned from them, the 12 of a primary school educator is to teach children, not subjects. What seems 13 to me is that all those teachers calmly create 14 in their ordinary classrooms. No one ever noticed that they were so creative in 15 young human beings.

Teaching is not just a job一it is a science and an art, and it 16 emotional labour and input. When I 17 after teaching for three decades, what gives me 18 is remembering the children who felt happier in school because I was their teacher. When I meet others who 19 to gain superpowers, like the brand-new teacher struggling to perfect her sills, or the one in a rural school traveling seventy kilometers each way just for the pupils, I feel 20 to belong to the same group.

Grammy - winning composer and conductor, Eric Whitacre, is among today's most popular (musician) of his generation. Up to now, his ground-breaking Virtual Choir  (unite) worldwide singers through the use of technology.

The Choir began as a simple experiment in social media when a fan of Eric recorded a video of herself singing Sleep and shared it on YouTube.  (move) by the video, Eric responded by rounding up his fans to make videos,  he then joined together into one performance. Eric was  inspired by this experiment that he decided to push the concept to the next level. He filmed  (he) when conducting one piece of his music for singers to follow and asked them to record and upload their voice part onto the Internet. Thus Virtual Choir 1: Lux Aurumque  (produce). From then on, more and more singers throughout the world joined the VC to sing  one voice.

Now, Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir is a  (globe) phenomenon. It helps connect ordinary people together and make the world  better place.